Nancy Boy
by Raederle
Summary: After bit of excitement after hours, James and Severus have a difficult talk regarding their future. James/Severus implied.


_A bit prior to The Shrieking Shack incident..._

**Nancy Boy**

Severus lay spent underneath the spring sky, looking at the twinkling stars with a touch of romanticism that he could never possibly share with anyone else. Well, almost. 

His eyes wandered over beside him, the serene post-coital face behind the fogged glasses and beneath the unruly hair. Hair almost as unruly as his own, but James Potter wasn't into hiding anything about himself. While Severus slicked his back into submission with grease, James just let his do whatever it pleased. He was open about everything, laughed at almost everything, and was afraid of nothing. Almost. 

"Severus..." James arm stretched lazily over his own head, feeling the wet grass against his skin. Severus remained silent. This was not a conversation he wanted to deal with. 

"Severus..." James asked again. "How do you feel about what I told you yesterday?" 

"Since when do you need the approval of others?" Severus asked smoothly, the edge of irritation evident in his voice. James shrugged, trailing a hand over Severus' pale musculature. Down the sparse, but defined abs, the tip of his fingers inching closer to that area that got so much attention from him anyway. Severus caught his hand and narrowed his eyes at him in expectance. 

"I always cared what you thought. It's why I'm asking." James sat up gingerly, sore from the night's previous activities. McGonagal didn't like her students to wander the campus after curfew… he could imagine her reaction to find them like this… so they'd taken his cloak to keep them from being discovered, and as a buffer against the ground and little pieces of grass and dirt that James had learned could get into interesting places if not otherwise protected. 

"I think that if your parents can't accept you for who you are, they can bloody well shove it up their arses." Severus snapped back. James had taken off his glasses and rubbed the arch of his nose, trying to think of what to say. Severus lay flat on the ground, watching him coldly, though it really turned him on when James did that. It was so incredibly cute and contrary to his usual personality. 

"They're my family, Severus. I have to do what they want of me. They want children, an heir to the Potter name. They want-" 

"What about what you want?" 

"I want you... but I want them to be happy, too. I want..." James turned to Severus and smirked that familiar grin. "I want to change the world. And I can't do that if people think I'm anything less than the standard, pureblood, hetero-freak that they want out of a leader. That's the way the world works these days." 

"It isn't how it works with me." Severus replied, getting up and turning around so that James could see his white naked backside. James often wondered how the people in Severus' family had almost created a new color for the racists. He wasn't just white. He was uberwhite. Severus began collecting his garments. 

"I want you to be comfortable with whomever I chose. And I don't want you out of my life." 

"And still, you're asking me to help you choose a wife?" Severus turned back to him and crossed his arms firmly. "Do you realize what kind of conflict this is for me? You're asking me to choose you someone you can live with, breed with, and most of all _to replace **me**_!!" 

"She wouldn't be replacing you... really..." James looked at him pleadingly with his slate blue eyes, washed silver in the moonlight. "I guess it's asking too much. But I don't have a choice here." 

Severus pulled his black silk boxers on, a gift from James that past Christmas, and picked up his black trousers. He paused, realizing that James hated it when he took forever to answer. 

"You always have a choice. And you're choosing family and acceptance over me. How can I live with that?" 

James sat there, still completely naked as Severus dressed. He didn't move, or even put his glasses back on. "I don't know." 

Severus continued to dress in silence. James watched him, taking in the sharp angles of Severus' figure. It would probably be the last time he would get to see him like this. Vulnerable, like everyone else. Honest and his shell broken. 

He slid a blue sweater onto his lanky frame, remembering the times when James would point out things in clothing stores and inform him that he looked good in other colors besides black. How James would laugh at himself so readily. Of all things, he took himself the least serious of all. Or so it seemed. James was the personification of Gemini. He had his lighter side, which was the forefront that everyone knew and accepted as his real self. And then, there was the darker, sadder, more levelheaded side that Severus was beginning to suspect that even Sirius Black didn't know existed. 

"You could have children with me, you know. There are spells." Severus muttered. James sighed. 

"I know." He didn't volunteer anything else. Severus could imagine how his family would react to _that_ situation. Severus paused for another long moment. 

"Pick a lesbian." He told him flatly. James put his glasses back on and looked at him critically. 

"A lesbian? Why?" 

Severus brushed off his clothing and knelt beside him. He kept his features in complete control. He was simply giving another guy advice now. "Because there have to be women out there in the same position as you, figuratively speaking. Choose Posey Parkinson. Or Lily. Get a friendship going and you might be able to live with it." 

James nodded solemnly. "I see." 

Severus stood and began to walk off. 

"Wait! What if you get caught? Don't you want to go back in my cloak?" 

Severus shook his head as he walked away. 

"I'm not hiding anything." 

Severus clenched his fist as he left, because he knew just how big a lie it was. 


End file.
